The Weaponization of ‘Gender’ beyond Gender:The Entrenchment of ‘Coloniality of Power’ and ‘Pedagogies of Cruelty’.

This chapter was published in the book Gender in an Era of Post-Truth Populism: Pedagogies, Challenges and Strategies. In it, I carry out certain geographical, epistemological and temporal displacements to address the contemporary weaponisation of ‘gender’ by Catholic/Christian (but also secular academics/pundits) from within a longer, non-liberal, and non Eurocentric perspective. I advance that those stirring the so called ‘culture wars’ aim to make a strong case for oppression, social injustice, and the exploitation of people and earth. They seek to counter the pedagogies of empathy, justice, and care that have been advanced by feminist, anti-racist and anti-colonial activists and scholars for decades and thanks to which certain, though limited, gains have been made. As such, the entrench the ‘coloniality of power’ (Quijano 2000) and constitute ‘pedagogies of cruelty’ (Segato 2018).